This is a clear violation of the Arizona Constitution which prohibits state funding to private and parochial schools:

Article 2, Section 12: "No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise, or instruction, or to the support of any religious establishment."

Article 11, Section 7: "No sectarian instruction shall be imparted in any school or state educational institution that may be established under this Constitution, and no religious or political test or qualification shall ever be required as a condition of admission into any public educational institution of the state, as teacher, student, or pupil;"

Several years ago, the Goldwater institute convinced the Arizona Supreme Court to accept a sort of "straw man exchange" argument common in real estate transactions to uphold tax credits that supported private and parochial schools. The argument was that the money went to the parents, not directly from the state to the schools, and thus did not violate the constitutional provisions above. The legal fiction created by the Court was in error, but established a legal precedent that the Goldwater Institute has been trying to exploit ever since.

And this is exactly what our Tea-Publican controlled legislature is hoping to accomplish with these so-called "empowerment scholarship accounts." Howard Fischer reports:

A House panel agreed Monday to allow hundreds of thousands of children to attend private and parochial schools at public expense — a vote one legislator said is part of a radical agenda to destroy public schools.

Commenter “Robert” alerted me to an “in-depth analysis” of Friday’s court decision dismissing the anti-Medicaid expansion lawsuit by Arizona’s Own Espresso Pundit. EP warns liberals like myself not to be too sanguine about the judge’s ruling that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing.

Tea-Publicans in Congress were tripping all over themselves to get to a microphone on Tuesday to trumpet a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that the conservative media entertainment complex, and its enablers in the corporate "lamestream" media either did not read or purposefully misrepresented with headlines like this in the Washington Post: CBO: Health law to mean 2 million fewer workers.

The [Washington Post’s "Fact Checker"] Glenn Kessler today published a fact-checking post breaking some news: No, he wrote, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) never, ever reported that Obamacare would somehow or other kill more than 2 million U.S. jobs.

Okay, to say that Kessler broke this news is a rhetorical exaggeration to highlight the point that many-o-many media outlets misconstrued the CBO findings. For a while this morning, the Internet was hopping with job-killing hype, when in fact the truth was vastly different. Obamacare’s impact, the CBO concluded, would lessen the supply of labor by encouraging certain folks not to work: “The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked. . . .”

For someone approaching retirement, notes Kessler, Obamacare could well mean that they needn’t hold onto a bad job just to keep health insurance. That’s a far different dynamic from job-killing.

First, a reminder that the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare" was designed by Gov. Mitt Romney's health care advisors and is modeled after "RomneyCare" in Massachusetts. It is "ObamneyCare."

RomneyCare originated with the Heritage Foundation as the Republican alternative to the Clinton health care reform proposals of the 1990s. The health care reform favored by the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party in recent years is "Medicare For All," a single-payer system that is far less complex and is more cost effective.

The "RomneyCare" Republican health care plan was supported by Republicans until the black guy in the White House, that secret socialist Muslim born in Kenya, Barack Obama, announced that he would support their plan. Suddenly the hybrid "ObamneyCare" was something created in the bowels of hell by Satan. Republican members of Congress who had sponsored the legislation and promoted it in the past were suddenly opposed to it. Such is the insanity induced by the Obama Derangement Syndrome era.

President Obama, having cleverly adopted the Republican plan as his own, left the Republicans without an alternative. And for four years the Republicans have been promising an alternative health care plan to what they refer to as "ObamaCare" in the hope that people will forget that it is their plan.

After four years, the Republicans are saying they finally have an alternative to their Heritage Foundation/RomneyCare/ObamneyCare health care plan. The outlines of the plan are a rehash of old proposals floated and rejected for years, and restores to insurers the financial advantage they enjoyed over consumers before "ObamaCare." It would cover far fewer people, limit coverage and allow for exclusions, and result in a tax increase for employer-sponsored health insurance plans.

Linda Valdez at The Arizona Republic is appropriately skeptical of Governor Jan Brewer's State of the State Address, where the Guv injured her arm patting herself on the back. Brewer's speech: state of the state 2014 :

This time it was her announcement that she abolished CPS. Jaw dropping. But it will accomplish little if chronic underfunding is not corrected. Unless the new agency gets adequate staffing and equipment, Brewer’s bold move may be little more than a distraction. Let’s hope not.

She offered a litany of smiley-face ideas. Who is going to oppose helping abused kids or victims of human trafficking? Who isn’t glad Arnold vs. Sarn is settled? But these goals will be impossible unless the state has more revenue. But the governor is pushing more revenue-robbing corporate tax cuts.

That does not compute.

* * *

More tax breaks for business means less revenue for education.

Brewer approach to schools? Gotta get better.

Following recession-era cuts to K-12 that were among the worst in the nation, she talks an “ambitious” proposal to reward successful students. A nice idea. Interesting pilot. But this is no way to rebuild a fund that was attacked with a meat cleaver.

Calling on the Board of Regents to hold the line on tuition makes sense. But how can the universities pay for this?

I got the following email from Mesa Mayor and (now) GOP candidate for AZ Governor Scott Smith:

Friend,

Today, I was honored to file paperwork to begin my campaign for Governor of Arizona.

For the past six years as Mayor of Mesa, I have shown how governing using conservative principles of efficient, effective and limited government can create opportunity and help individuals and businesses succeed. I am confident the experience and successes I have gained as mayor can be a model for success for all of Arizona.

As Governor, my number one priority for Arizona will be to build a healthy economy, get Arizonans great jobs and brighten the future for our children.

As Mayor of Mesa, I dealt with a $62 million shortfall caused by the economy by reducing spending, reforming government operations, and eliminating burdensome regulations. Mesa residents are paying less in taxes than they were before I became Mayor.

I also brought economic opportunity by keeping the Chicago Cubs spring training in town, recruiting 5 private universities to our downtown, and led the effort to bring Apple to Arizona.

As a business owner, I turned around a troubled company into a $200 million company and looked at opportunities to create jobs and work in areas other builders had long ignored. I am proud of the success we achieved and the Arizonans we employed. I also know how hard it is when Washington bureaucrats force ill-conceived policies like Obamacare on the American people. As Governor I will stand up to Barack Obama and work with our Congressional delegation to replace it.

I am pro-life, support traditional marriage, am a strong proponent of Second Amendment rights, and believe Governor Brewer was right to demand the Federal Government secure our border.

I am a man of faith and it is at the core of who I am.

In addition, I am the only candidate in this race who as an executive in government has actually put true conservative principles into action to bring economic opportunity to Arizona while also shrinking the size of government.

Our state has amazing potential to lead the nation in job growth and economic prosperity. With continued conservative leadership, we can bring more companies like Apple to Arizona.

We can create additional high paying jobs for Arizonans while keeping fiscal discipline with government spending.

We can create a world-class education system for our children while also giving parents control over where their child attends school.

We can hold true to our conservative principles while also being leaders who bring people together to solve the challenges we face.

We can do this together and I ask that you please take a moment to join our campaign. Together, we can make Arizona the greatest state in America to live, work, and raise our families.

Sincerely,

Scott Smith

That's standard right wing boilerplate there: anti-choice, anti-gay, pro-gun, "school choice", drown the government. God, Obama-bashing. Yet I'm still being told what a nice, pragmatic, and moderate man he is. Of course I anticipate the inevitable protest: "Oh but you know he's just doing that for the primary!". Unless Scott Smith has given you his personal assurance that the uber-conservative stances he's taken are simply a ruse to fool Republican primary voters, you have no way of knowing that. If he hasn't told you that then you should realize that you are pinning your hopes on Smith being someone different from who he tells you he fundamentally is. I can tell you from my dating days that that is not a good idea.

Protests against the low wages paid by multinational corporate giants have been sweeping the country, since the Occupy Movement raised the consciousness of the 99%. On Black Friday, Nov. 29, at Walmart stores nationwide and again Thursday, Dec. 5 at McDonald's restaurants nationwide, workers, unionists, progressives, and other liberal activists protested unfairly low wages and barriers to unionization for millions of US workers.

With profits, CEO pay, and wage disparity at all time highs, isn't it time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage?

At McDonald's, approximately 80-100 citizens braved chilly temperatures and intermittent rain to protest low wages. In the days before the local protest, right wing radio host Jon Justice shared PDA Tucson's Facebook announcement about the event and urged his Facebook followers to come to the midtown McDonald's, show their support for the fast food chain, and eat some good food. (Excuse me, but McDonald's hasn't served "good food" in decades-- if ever.) This resulted in a flurry of comments on the PDA page and Justice's page about the "entitlement mentality", people being "paid what they're worth", and the fast food industry being "one key stroke away from 80% automation"-- justifying Arizona's $7.80/hour minimum wage and offering support to McDonald's franchisees who make millions on the backs of workers.

The Treasury Department proposed new guidelines Tuesday that would affect so-called social welfare groups applying for tax-exempt status[.]

The intended rule change would establish a new term, “candidate-related political activity,” to help the IRS determine which organizations should be disqualified from 501 (c)(4) status.

The department said it will also seek recommendations for changing how much of a group’s activities could fall into that prohibited category before they would be ineligible for tax-exemption.

Many lawmakers have criticized the IRS’s current policy of allowing organizations to qualify as long as the majority of their activities do not involve political actions, a standard that is difficult to measure.

The newly proposed rules would clarify that social welfare does not count as prohibited activity. It would also define the term “candidate-related political activity” to include communications, grants and contributions and activities closely related to elections or candidates advocating for a clearly identified political candidate.

Tucson is one of the most impoverished cities in the country—for many reasons. The Arizona Legislature—driven by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and short-sighted, “small government” ideology—has routinely swept funds earmarked for counties and cities to "balance" the state’s budget or fund pet projects like lower corporate taxes.

Beyond the Legislature’s negative impact on Baja Arizona, the Tucson economy is not diversified enough. Manufacturing is nearly non-existent in Southern Arizona. There is an over-reliance on defense spending, University of Arizona spin-offs, tourism, low-wage service jobs, and growth/development. During the Great Recession, multiple income streams for our local economy were dramatically reduced or eliminated—resulting in the loss of hundreds, if not thousands of good-paying jobs due to budget cuts, business closures, and the housing market crash. People and jobs left the area.

In August, the Arizona Daily Star ran a week-long series on multiple aspects of poverty in Southern Arizona and just this week, the Star ran a story that stated Tucson was second only to Detroit in the proliferation of crappy, low-wage jobs. In a survey of 52 metro areas with over 1 million residents, Tucson was in the top 10 for job creation; the problem is that more than half of the projected 28,000 new jobs will pay less than $13.84/hour. (If you really want to be depressed, check out the list of Tucson's fastest growing occupations here. None of these jobs requires a college education. Thanks to TREO's efforts, telemarketer is #1. Thanks to Tucson's ample supply of old folks, the next four most popular jobs are low-wage health/caregiver positions. We won't break the cycle of poverty in this city with a jobs picture like this.)

So, we know that our city has big economic challenges. Now what? As I wrote back in August, it's time for some creative economic solutions. It's time to STOP our addiction to military spending. It's time to STOP relying on temporary construction jobs and low-wage hospitality industry jobs. It's time to defund TREO and STOP chasing rainbows by competing with other metro areas for "the next IBM" or the next spring training team. It's time to STOP sending our money to Wall Street for investment. It's time to START investing in Tucson. It's time for public banking. [Read why after the jump.]

Among companies listed on the S&P 500, almost one in nine paid an effective tax rate of zero percent — or even lower — over the past year, according to an analysis by USA Today.

There are 57 separate companies listed on the index that paid a zero
percent rate from the past year. Those companies include both household
names like Verizon and News Corp. and lesser-known corporate giants like
the data storage manufacturer Seagate (market value $15.9 billion) and
Public Storage (market value $29.5 billion). Many of the companies USA
Today identified in its analysis as paying negative rates make the list
because they lost money, but several were profitable. Previous analyses
have shown that the typical corporation pays a lower effective tax rate than most middle-class families, and a far lower one than the statutory corporate tax rate against which business interests disingenuously rail.

Getting to a zero percent tax rate despite turning a profit requires
creative accounting, but not lawbreaking. The corporate tax code allows
companies to avoid tax liability even in years when they turn a profit.
Some of the profitable companies on the newspaper’s list, such as
General Motors, achieved a zero percent rate by banking tax credits from
previous years when business was bad. But the more common gambit
involves moving revenues from parent companies to offshore subsidiaries
based in tax haven countries in the Caribbean, Europe, and elsewhere.

By the way, that budget surplus Brewer is touting is illusory. The
package of tax cuts enacted for businesses that begin to phase in this
fiscal year will begin to erode that "surplus" quickly, as the tax cuts
were meant to maintain a structural revenue deficit so that
Tea-Publicans can make the argument that we need to cut the state budget
even more.

If the Tea-Publicans in Congress continue to pull money out of the
economy with their "austerity" automatic sequester cuts, or worse, blow
up the economy by defaulting on the federal debt ceiling, the economic
downturn which will result will quickly dissipate Governor Brewer's
illusory budget "surplus."

The state is headed into another financial
hole, the combination of already approved tax cuts and required annual
spending increases.

Members of the state's Finance Advisory Committee predicted Friday that revenues will grow 3.5 percent this current fiscal year over
what they were last year. And the following year there will be another
5.3 percent increase.

But Richard Stavneak, staff director of the Joint Legislative Budget
Committee, said none of that is keeping pace with already built-in
requirements for annual spending. In fact, even the budget for the
current year is $330 million above what's coming in the door.

Stavneak said the state can survive for the next
two fiscal years because of sharp spending cuts in prior years, coupled
with leftover cash from the now-expired 1-cent surcharge on the state
sales tax.

But Staveneak said that will be gone by the 2016
budget year, with the state ending up $202 million in the red. And if
that deficit is not cured and spending proceeds apace, he figures the
red ink could hit $505 million by the 2017 budget year.

Even that may be optimistic.

Especially if the Tea-Publican economic terorists in Congress actually do default on the U.S. debt in a couple of weeks. The 2008 financial crisis is going to look like a Sunday walk in the park compared to the economic catastrophe to be unleashed by a default on the U.S. debt.

Rep. J.D. Mesnard (R-Chandler) desires to be the next Speaker of the House in the Arizona Legislature in 2015. Of course, Republicans would have to maintain their majority first, but hey.

J.D. Mesnard is currently co-chairing a legislative task force on reforming Arizona's income tax as a vehicle to ride to the speakership. He has run into a couple of embarrassing problems recently which demonstrate that he is not ready for prime time.

After four weeks and three meetings of a
task force with intentions to reform, tweak, or overhaul Arizona’s
personal income tax system, the members of the group don’t seem closer
to deciding what, exactly, they want to accomplish.

It’s an issue that Rep. J.D. Mesnard, a
co-chair of the task force and the driving force behind it, has
attempted to address at several points in the past few weeks, most
recently at the outset of a meeting on Sept. 19.

“I keep getting asked the question, ‘What are we trying to do?’ and
my response has always been, ‘Whatever we can to make the system
better,’” Mesnard, R-Chandler, told the task force.

But that’s precisely what lawmakers,
economists, tax experts and business leaders can’t seem to settle on, as
members of the task force bring their own unique perspective to the
state’s tax code and what’s good for taxpayers and the Arizona economy.

“We seem to still be searching for who we are and what we’re doing,”
said Rep. Bruce Wheeler, D-Tucson. “And it was made clear today from
members on both sides that we need some clarity as to what direction
we’re going, because I can’t answer that question.”

Last week the media villagers held their annual confab to give each other awards for the excellent work they are doing (cough!), and Governor Jan Brewer showed up to work the refs. This is how the Sierra Vista Herald described it. Our View: The governor's welcome words:

The annual National Newspaper Convention took place last week at the
Grand Resort in Phoenix, bringing industry professionals from across the
country to Arizona.

Brewer touted the state’s financial comeback, pointing to dramatic
budget cuts, fewer regulations, and a rebounding economy as the key
components of a plan that turned a $3 billion state budget deficit into a
nearly $1 billion surplus.

You may recall that after President Obama's recent visit to the Phoenix area in August, Governor Brewer, while offering a gracious greeeting at the airport, later issued a Statement from Governor Jan Brewer on President Obama's Visit to Arizona (.pdf) in which she employed this bit of hyperbole: "The Arizona Comeback is in full-swing, and this was the President’s opportunity to witness firsthand a true economic success story."

Two years ago, the Occupy Movement– with its simple “We Are the 99%!” message– united the world by enlightening us to the workings of the corporate oligarchy and the governments they run (including our own) and how this system is designed to keep us down.
Worldwide, Occupy encampments sprang up in 2011.

On the second anniversary of Occupy, there will be worldwide protests against austerity.
Here at home the anniversary will be marked with a Poor People’s Party.

Here is the information from Occupy Tucson.

This Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013, beginning at 6:00 pm, Occupy Tucson, National Nurses United, and Progressive Democrats of America are hosting a Poor People’s Party to offer a collective response to the global austerity measures foisted upon us.

Starting Tuesday, a challenge to all people in Southern Arizona, spend
only $4 a day on food. That is idea behind the SNAP challenge.

Participants are ‘challenged' to only spend $4 per person, per day
for four days and still keep the meals healthy and their family members
full.

The SNAP challenge is sponsored by the Community Food Bank of
Southern Arizona, who stated that while this challenge experience cannot
give participants a true sense of living in deep or prolonged poverty,
it can provide insight into some challenges many families face.

Challenge organizers also want participants to consider proposed cuts to the SNAP program.

When Congress officially returns to Washington next week, the diets of
families like the Rigsbys and the Adamses will be caught up in a debate
over deficit reduction. Republicans, alarmed by a rise in food stamp
enrollment, are pushing to revamp and scale down the program. Democrats
are resisting the cuts.

No matter what Congress decides, benefits will be reduced in November,
when a provision in the 2009 stimulus bill expires.

The good news about the insurance exchange rates continues in advance of the marketplace insurance exchanges coming online on October 1. The rates have consistently been below the rates initially projected, and are even a better deal when the tax subsidy is factored in.

The most comprehensive study
on Obamacare to date finds that Americans’ insurance premiums under the
health law will be “lower than expected.” Many Americans will pay even
less than the top-line rates after factoring in government subsidies for
their health coverage, with some paying nothing at all for crucial
medical coverage.

The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) looked at individual policy prices
in the 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have released
comprehensive numbers for their Obamacare insurance marketplaces. Since
premiums under the law will vary based on factors such as age and
geographic location, KFF chose to examine how much the second-least
expensive “Silver” mid-level plan and the least-expensive bare-bones
“Bronze” level plan would cost for 25-year-old, 40-year-old, and
60-year-old Americans in those 17 states’ largest cities. The report
includes both the top-line prices for those demographics, as well as
what their costs would be after factoring in government subsidies based
on varying income levels.

I mentioned in passing in Tucson City Council Election Preview that the Virginia-based ballot initiative activist Paul Jacob, and his Liberty Initiative Fund, according to his website, is supporting a group called Cincinnati for Pension Reform, which launched a
petition drive hoping to gather the 7,443 voter signatures required to
place a pension reform charter amendment on this November’s city ballot.

The Tea Party-backed amendment that would semi-privatize
Cincinnati’s ailing pension system gathered enough signatures earn a
place on the November ballot. German Lopez for the City Beat blog at the
Cincinnati Enquirer on August 12 wrote, Pension Amendment Earns Spot on November Ballot:

City officials acknowledge the issues with the current pension
system, but they claim the tea party-backed amendment would exacerbate
cost problems and reduce payments to future city retirees.

“Under the guise of ‘reform,’ a well-financed out-of-state group is
pushing an amendment that spells economic disaster for the future city
retirees and the city’s budget,” Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls said in a
statement. “Current and future retirees need an income they can live on.
This amendment is a budget-buster for retirees and the city.”

City Council condemned the amendment in a resolution unanimously passed on Aug. 7.

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in June, ending the federal government's ability to discriminate against legally married same-sex marriage partners from states that recognize same-sex marriage, the Obama administration has had the agencies of the federal government conducting a review to amend rules and regulations to comply with the law.

Yesterday, the IRS and Medicare announced a policy which uses the “place of celebration” rule, rather than the place of residence of legally married same-sex marriage partners. This policy change will have a profound effect on undermining Section 2 of DOMA (states do not have to recognize the status of legally married same-sex marriage partners from states that recognize same-sex marriage -- in violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Article IV, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution), because so many states use the federal adjusted gross income from Form 1040 as the basis for factoring state income taxes. The IRS and Medicare will now recognize same-sex marriages. All of them.:

According to a big new announcement
from the IRS and the Treasury Department, if you’re a legally married
gay couple, the federal government will recognize your marriage — even
if you live in a state where your marriage isn’t legal.

The statement, released by the Treasury Department Thursday, says that department and the IRS will use a “place of celebration” rule in recognizing same-sex unions (recognition that was illegal before the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act last month). That means that the U.S. government recognizes a marriage if the union was legally recognized in the place where it occurred, where it was celebrated. That’s true even if the married couple then lives in a state where gay marriage is illegal.

UPDATE: This article was picked up by the national publication In These Times and by the Daily Kos Progressive Blog Round-up. Check out the In These Times version for more details: Knights of the Progressive Roundtable.

Deals are made, and bills are negotiated not only in the halls of Congress but in offices and meeting rooms around DC. Since December 2012, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) has been conducting monthly, Educate Congress roundtable meetings with Congressional representatives and key staff.

With a give-and-take format, these meetings allow PDA representatives and allies to discuss proposed legislation and related progressive ideas and allow Congressional representatives and staffers to offer updates, insights, and strategies.

The Progressive Roundtables provide a forum to address a broad range of issues– from Wall Street gambling and hunger in America to voting rights, immigration, fracking, universal healthcare, the living wage, austerity, tax reform, mass incarceration, and more.

“One of the things I love about PDA is you stand up for ‘the little guy,’ and that’s what government’s all about,” Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern told the roundtable audience in July 2013. “Donald Trump doesn’t need us [Congress], but somebody who is unemployed or somebody who is working and making so little that they still qualify for SNAP [food stamps], they need us!” More roundtable details and videos after the jump.)

The Washington Post reports today that Congressman Chris Van Hollen will file a lawsuit today over the REAL IRS Scandal -- that any of these 501(c)(4) organizations engaged in politics ever received tax exempt status in the first place. Pay attention Doug MacEachern, you GOP agitprop hack. High-ranking
Democrat to sue IRS over tax-exemption rules:

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Budget
Committee, said Tuesday that he will serve as lead plaintiff in the
case, which addresses one of the main concerns that surfaced with the
recent IRS targeting controversy: differences between federal law and the IRS rules on eligibility for 501(c)(4) candidates.

Current law says the organizations must engage “exclusively” in social welfare activities, but IRS tax code
requires only that they are “primarily engaged” in such purposes. That
discrepancy has led to confusion for application processors, who have
struggled to determine what constitutes political activity and how much
should disqualify groups from tax-exemption, according to agency
officials.

“I don’t think the IRS should be in the business of
determining whether the primary purpose of an organization is political
or educational,” Van Hollen said in an interview Tuesday. “The statute
is very clear they should not be in that business.”

There has been some seriously "craptacular" reporting by conservative media about the alleged premium "rate shock" in insurance rates under "ObamaCare." Every time you see one of these reports about premium “rate shock,” make certain you note whether the reporting accounts for tax subsidies or not.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new report out that examines how people currently in
the individual market will be affected by the reforms taking effect in
2014. Premiums will change for variety of reasons. You should read the whole issue brief, or Jon Cohn’s commentary here. As
Kaiser acknowledges, premiums will go up for some people and down for
others. They go a step further, though, and look at how many people in
the current market will benefit from the premium tax subsidies.

About half (48%) of
people now buying their own insurance would be eligible for a tax credit
that would offset their premium. This does not include over one million
adults buying individual insurance today who will be eligible for
Medicaid starting in 2014 (i.e., they have family income up to 138% of
the poverty level and are living in states that have decided to expand Medicaid under the ACA).

Outside, the people, who have been cut out of the legislative process by ALEC and big money donors, protested in the streets. (Photos here.)

In its 40-year history, ALEC has done more to destroy the American Dream than any other group. According to a report by the Center for Media and Democracy, 466 ALEC bills were introduced in 2013, and 84 of them became law. Every state and the District of Columbia considered ALEC bills this year. Read the highlights of this ALEC legislative report and watch a video of Chicago protesters after the jump.

Last week House Republicans voted for the 40th time
to repeal Obamacare. Like the previous 39 votes, this action will have
no effect whatsoever. But it was a stand-in for what Republicans really
want to do: repeal reality, and the laws of arithmetic in particular.
The sad truth is that the modern G.O.P. is lost in fantasy, unable to
participate in actual governing.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about policy substance. I may believe
that Republicans have their priorities all wrong, but that’s not the
issue here. Instead, I’m talking about their apparent inability to
accept very basic reality constraints, like the fact that you can’t cut
overall spending without cutting spending on particular programs, or the
fact that voting to repeal legislation doesn’t change the law when the
other party controls the Senate and the White House.

Business friendly? Tucson’s been there, done that, … and got the t-shirt at Goodwill. As former City Councilwoman Molly McKasson said, we put all of our eggs in the development basket and look where it got us.

Twenty percent of Tucsonans are living in poverty.

Thirty percent of Tucson children are living in poverty.

Fifty-two percent of Tucson children live in a one-parent household.

Seventy-one percent of Tucson Unified School District students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. (Statistics from the Arizona Daily Star.)

How did we get here?

The Back Story on Tucson’s Poverty Rate

In a November 2011 “What If?” article published just a few days before the last mayoral election, former Arizona Daily Star reporter Josh Brodesky interviewed activist, writer, and artist McKasson and mused about how Tucson would be different today if she had beaten former Mayor Bob Walkup back in their 1999 match-up.

I remember that election well. Walkup– a former Hughes Aircraft executive and former head of the Greater Tucson Economic Council– was the quintessential business candidate. Bankrolled by Tucson’s business community, Walkup’s campaign successfully painted McKasson as a flighty hippie artist whose no-growth, tree-hugging, water-conserving policies would be bad for Tucson (ie, bad for business and bad for growth). Meanwhile, Walkup was championed as a business savvy savior who successfully ran a business, and, therefore, (of course!) could successfully run a city.

As mayor, the glad-handing, ribbon-cutting Walkup promoted business development, Rio Nuevo, and ill-conceived, taxpayer-funded private projects like the downtown hotel (which went down in flames, thank goodness). Except for his pro-business, pro-growth cheerleading, Walkup was a do-nothing mayor who depended upon defense funding, the occasional TREO call center moving to Tucson, and housing boom construction jobs to bolster Tucson’s chronically low-wage tourist economy. The Tucson Weekly’s endorsement of McKasson (here) eerily predicts what happened to Tucson under three terms of Walkup. Read it and more background and new ideas after the jump.

The current 113th Congress is also the "hardly working" Congress. I have posted the House calendar before, but check out where things stand right now: Congress is taking a five week August recess and has scheduled only nine days in September before the fiscal year ends on September 30. Nine "working" days to avoid a government shutdown and the GOP hostage taking threat to default on the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to their extortionary hostage demand to defund or repeal "ObamaCare." Does anyone seriously believe that this failed Congress is up to the task? We are headed for a trainwreck folks.

GOP austerity economics and their self-destructive sequestration policy are a drag on economic recovery and job growth, as any credible economist could have predicted. “Sequestration — and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary
cuts — must be brought to an end,” said Hal Rogers, the Republican chair
of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. GDP grew at only 1.7 percent in the second quarter, which we are told was better than expected. U.S.
Growth Beats Forecasts Despite Federal Cuts. I'm sorry, this is lowering expectations: this GDP number is not nearly enough to create job growth. GOP economic policies are sabotaging the economy.

The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in July,
below expectations. In a rare sight, public-sector layoffs were not a
drag on the overall totals -- the private sector added 161,000 jobs,
while the public sector added 1,000 jobs. (In recent years, the public
sector ordinarily sheds several thousand jobs per month). The overall
unemployment rate dropped to 7.4%, but largely because of people leaving
the workforce.

Even more discouraging were the revisions from the
previous two months -- May's totals were revised down from 195,000 to
176,000, while June's totals were revised down from 195,000 to 188,000.
Combined, that's 26,000 jobs we thought were created, but weren't.

I took the Arizona Republic's cog in the right-wing noise machine of
GOPropaganda, Doug MacEachern, to task earlier this week for his post on the IRS "scandal." MacEachern:
Hard to like big government.

Democrats have realized it is time to stop criticizing IRS misdeeds
that apparently didn't happen, and it's time to start mocking
Republicans relentlessly for making baseless allegations with no
foundation in reality. Steve Benen writes, Putting the nail in the phony-scandal coffin:

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released this video [below the fold], which is just a brutal takedown of Republican claims. This
week, instead of doing real work, House GOP leaders are eager to hold
"message" votes related to the IRS story, but as the video makes clear, there is no IRS story. Republicans raised specific questions, which have been answered. They
raised specific allegations, which have been discredited.

Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) put the GOP on notice Tuesday by
characterizing a vote against shutting down the government by refusing
to fund the Affordable Care Act as endorsing the law outright.

"Defund it, or own it. If you fund it, you're for it," Lee said on the Senate floor.

Lee, joined by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), is
spearheading an effort not to fund the government unless it excludes
appropriations to implement Obamacare. The lawmakers are finding severe resistance within their own ranks, however.

The new "compromise caucus" of the old guard of the GOP which has emerged in the Senate is pushing back against these Tea Party economic terrorists. And it looks as if the terrorist plot to hold the country hostage to extort killing "ObamaCare" is coming undone. Can you hear their primal screams?

Reuters reported last week that Tea-Publican economic terrorists and a phalanx of "Kochtopus" organizations are mobilizing a counter-offensive against "ObamaCare" including town hall meetings, protests and media promotions to dissuade uninsured Americans from obtaining health coverage through the health insurance exchanges. Republicans prepare for 'Obamacare' showdown, with eye to 2014 elections:

"The best way to get the juices of that
right-wing electorate and activist group going is to attack Obamacare -
make everything that happens look awful and voters will rebel against
it," said Norman Ornstein, an expert on congressional politics at the
conservative American Enterprise Institute.

"It's
a belief that if they highlight this, and sabotage it as much as they
can, and if it's disruptive, that that will work for them in the
mid-terms."

The White House and Department of Health and Human Services are well aware of their opponents' political maneuvers.

"There
are folks out there who are actively working to make this law fail,"
Obama said in a speech on Wednesday, condemning the opponents' effort as
"a politically motivated misinformation campaign."

Hope Yen of the Associated Press has an analysis out today which indicates 80% of Americans deal with unemployment, near-poverty or reliance on public assistance at some point in their lives. Exclusive: Signs of declining economic security:

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or
reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of
deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an
increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and
poor and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the
trend.

The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his
administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that
his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse
income inequality.

If John Boehner
is to be believed — which, admittedly, is a real question — Republicans
are once again willing to push America into default and/or shut down
the government if they don’t get their way. As Greg Sargent
points out, this is amazing — and what’s equally amazing is how this is
being treated as normal. Politics ain’t beanbag; but “I’ve got a bomb
strapped to my chest, and the whole room gets it if you don’t hand over
the money” is not normal tactics, especially if pursued repeatedly.

* * *

To the extent that there ever was an economic justification for this
brinksmanship — the claim that we were on the verge of a debt crisis,
the claim that slashing spending would boost the economy — that
justification has collapsed in the face of declining debt projections
and overwhelming evidence that austerity has large negative impacts in a
slump.

In the “post policy nihilism”
of the GOP, Republicans are no longer guided by any real policy
“asks,” but rather are chronically positioning themselves only in
opposition to the
president's policies. "Just say no."

The latest example: Three years after campaigning on a vow to "repeal and replace" President
Obama's health care law, House Republicans have yet to advance any
alternative for the system they have voted more than three dozen times
to abolish in whole or in part. GOP yet to detail any alternative to health overhaul:

Officially, the effort is "in progress" - and has been since Jan. 19, 2011, according to GOP.gov, a leadership-run website. [Actually, since 2009.]

But
internal divisions, disagreement about political tactics and Obama's
2012 re-election add up to uncertainty over whether Republicans will
vote on a plan of their own before the 2014 elections, or if not by
then, perhaps before the president leaves office, more than six years
after the original promise.

* * *

The current state of intentions contrasts sharply with the Pledge to
America, the manifesto that Republicans campaigned on in 2010 when they
took power away from the Democrats. That included a plan to "repeal and
replace" what it termed a government takeover of health care.

The Federal Reserve’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, sharpened his
insistence Wednesday that the Fed remains committed to its economic
stimulus campaign and that it did not intend to signal it was lowering
its sights in recent weeks.

Mr. Bernanke said that the Fed expected the economy to gain strength in
the coming months, potentially allowing the Fed to decelerate its
stimulus campaign not because it has changed its goals but because it
has begun to achieve them.

But he warned that Congress itself remains the greatest obstacle to
faster growth. Federal spending cuts are reducing growth this year by
about 1.5 percentage points, he said. While the Fed expects the impact
to diminish next year, he said there was a risk Congress would create
new problems for the economy.

After the jump, check out several news stories and two videos which highlight [Republican] men behaving badly in the Congress and multiple state legislatures. Heavy sigh. Will this strategy of "subtraction" work for them in 2014 or 2016? I personally don't see how it can.

Have you heard about “libertarian populism” yet? If not, you will . . . So let me make a helpful public service announcement: It’s bunk.

Some background: These are tough times for members of the conservative
intelligentsia — those denizens of think tanks and opinion pages who
dream of Republicans once again becoming “the party of ideas.” (Whether
they ever were that party is another question.)

For a while, they thought they had found their wonk hero in the person
of Mr. Ryan. But the famous Ryan plan turned out to be crude smoke and
mirrors, and I suspect that even conservatives privately realize that
its author is more huckster than visionary. So what’s the next big idea?

Enter libertarian populism. The idea here is that there exists a pool of
disaffected working-class white voters who failed to turn out last year
but can be mobilized again with the right kind of conservative economic
program — and that this remobilization can restore the Republican
Party’s electoral fortunes.

You can see why many on the right find this idea appealing. It suggests
that Republicans can regain their former glory without changing much of
anything — no need to reach out to nonwhite voters, no need to
reconsider their economic ideology. You might also think that this
sounds too good to be true — and you’d be right. The notion of
libertarian populism is delusional on at least two levels.

Progressives in Congress and across the country are fighting the tide of right wing extremism on multiple fronts-- from food stamps to cuts in Social Security to stalled immigration reform to anti-woman legislation to austerity for the middle class, while the wealthy live high on the hog.

Congressman Raul Grijalva has been at the forefront of the progressive movement in Congress. As another budget battle heats up in the House of Representatives, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) want to thank our stalwarts like Grijalva, and at the same time want to celebrate Medicare's 48th birthday.

This rally at Grijalva's office is part of a nationwide action at multiple Congressional offices by PDA and National Nurses United (NNU). The event is 10:30 a.m.-12 noon at the old YWCA (738 N. 5th Ave.)

At some locations-- like Congressman Ron Barber's-- PDA members will do letter drops urging Congressional representatives to support certain bills or issues. This month the focus is on prosperity vs austerity, Medicare expansion, jobs, and progressive financial legislation like the Robin Hood Tax. (More details below.) At Grijalva's office and others, there will be street heat rallies, as there were last month when PDA members were protesting cuts to food stamps nationwide and helped stop the Farm Bill.

Details are still being formulated; so, watch this blog and the PDA Tucson Facebook page for updates. Details after the jump.

In reviewing the financial disclosure filings with the City of Tucson, it turns out Paul Jacob has company, the National Taxpayers Union, an allegedly "nonpartisan" (for 501(c) tax status) right-wing anti-tax organization.

The Committee for Sustainable Retirement in support of the initiative ("The Committee") is the local group fronting for this out-of-state operation. The 6-12-13
Contribution and Expenditure Report listed contributions of $4,000 and $5,000 from the
Liberty Initiative Fund, and a contribution of $8,000 from the National Taxpayers Union. The Committee then filed a 6-14-13 "Correction" to that report, claiming that the Liberty Initiative Fund was its single source contributor.

The June 30, 2013 Campaign Finance Report was filed by the Committee on 6-26-13, and lo and behold, it filed a No Activity Report with a bunch of zeroes and a total of $25 cash on hand. The Pre-Primary Election Report is not due until August 23, 2013.

[Sens.] McCain
and Flake expressed concerns about $115 million worth of automatic
sequester cuts to wildland firefighting resources that McCain said will
result in 500 fewer firefighters and 50 fewer fire engines this season.

McCain
said the country needs more heavy air tankers after dropping from 44 in
2002 to 18 last year. He and other members of Congress have asked the
Department of Defense to transfer more of its older planes to the Forest
Service. "It's clear that we are facing cuts that will reduce the
capability of the Forest Service...to fight these fires," McCain said.

One-fourth
of Arizona has burned in wildfires over the last decade, he said,
citing the long-term drought and overstocked forests as contributing
factors. He supports more timber contracts to thin out the forests.

"In the older days, fires just swept through and didn't do damage," he said. "They do now."

Our firefighters are being asked to do more with less, which puts their lives on the line. How many more lives need to be lost?

Now when you were evaluating -- you right now watching this -- the American
voter, the American citizen, the American taxpayer, you`re thinking: is
this a smart way to spend money?

I would like you to keep in mind these two important things. The Migration
Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, found that in 2012 we spent $18
billion on immigration enforcement agencies, a 43 percent increase from
2006. Here`s the kicker. That $18 billion, that`s more than we spent on
all other law enforcement agencies combined by 24 percent.

And do you happen to know what the net migration between Mexico and the
United States currently is? It is zero. Zero.

When Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) rallied its membership and asked them to take to the streets, their computers, and their telephones to oppose food stamp cuts in the farm bill, stopping the multi-year, behemoth looked bleak.

Both versions of the bill had cuts to food stamps and school lunches; the House of Representatives version, which was defeated on Thursday, had $20 billion in cuts to food stamps + increased subsidies to agribusiness, and the Senate version has $4 billion in cuts. This is immoral– feeding the military industrial complex but not the children.

PDA mobilized nationally to stop this– hundreds of letter drops at Congressional offices around the country and in Washington DC, thousands of phone calls and e-mails to Congressional representatives. And it worked– for now. Details of the mobilization after the jump.

Tea-Publicans love to rail against government spending, the federal deficit, and the national debt, and loudly proclaim that they are fiscally conservative. Bullshit.

Ronald Reagan quadrupled the national debt in eight years. George W. Bush doubled it again during his eight years, and left office with the economy cratered from the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.

These "deficit peacocks" like to preen that they are against wasteful government spending, except when they are not.

The latest example: the border security "surge" proposed by Tea-Publican Senators Bob Corker and John Hoeven to secure more votes in the U.S. Senate for the "Gang of Eight" comprehensive immigration bill. They propose to waste $30 billion dollars or more to buy off nativists and racists in the anti-immigrant wing of the GOP -- a dubious proposition -- hatred is priceless; it defines who they are, and is their only reason for living.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes did an impressive job laying out the particulars on his program All In on Thursday evening. Transcript Thursday, June 20:

in order to stabilize and further build support from their side of the
aisle, Republican Senators Bob Corker and John Hoeven struck a deal with
the gang of eight, a deal that suddenly makes comprehensive immigration
reform seem more possible, more likely to actually happen than it has in
weeks.

That is the progress. That`s progress. It`s excellent news. And it`s
also infuriating because of how they are luring Republicans into the fold.
Corker and Hoeven have an amendment where they are calling for a border,
quote, "surge."

A few weeks ago, in Success At Last, Sort Of, I engaged in a bit of self-promotion after having my op-ed piece on Apple's tax shenanigans published in a few small dailies.

Well, this post is Success At Last, For Real, because, well, this time it's shameless self-promotion and it's not a small daily. In fact, it's not even a medium sized daily. It's the L.A. F-'in Times. Here's the link:

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Tuesday that he and two campaign
finance watchdog groups would sue the IRS, challenging regulations that
allow nonprofit groups to be involved in politics if they're "primarily"
devoted to a social welfare purpose.

Van Hollen said he and watchdog groups Campaign Legal Center and
Democracy 21 would sue to clarify an IRS regulation that he said was at
odds with the law, which requires certain groups to "exclusively" engage
in social welfare to earn nonprofit status. The IRS regulation
permitting groups “primarily” engaged in social welfare allows the
organizations to participate in an undefined amount of political
activity, said the congressman, a leading advocate of campaign finance
reform and ranking member of the House Budget Committee.

The 1959 IRS regulation has become an issue since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door for nonprofit groups organized under section 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) of the tax code to raise and spend corporate and union money on elections without disclosing donors. The scandal involving the agency's singling out conservative groups applying for nonprofit status has increased attention to the regulation, especially among Democratic lawmakers.

More good news on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka "ObamaCare") -- it is bending the cost curve on healthcare costs, just as it was designed to do, which also bends the curve on federal deficits.

Dobson DaVanzo & Associates, in a report for the hospital group,
concludes that if present trends continue Medicare savings will be $1
trillion more in the next 10 years than the savings projected by the
Congressional Budget Office in May. The changes, Al Dobson said in an
interview, are the result of marketplace pressures and the Affordable
Care Act, which set new penalties for hospital readmissions, and
included bundled payments and other incentives for hospitals and doctors
to find ways to cut costs without hurting patients.

* * *

PwC uses a medical cost trend–or growth rate–that measures the
changes in the cost to treat patients and is influenced by the cost of
products and services and utilization. The projection is based on
interviews with health plans, a survey of employers and other
data. They conclude that
health-care spending growth will dip to 6.5 percent next year, adding
that the slowing of health-care spending “defies historical
post-recession patterns and is likely to be sustained” even as millions
of uninsured Americans enter the health system next year.

The fourth and last piece in my four part series on wealth that produces income not subject to current tax, America's Ever-Expanding Tax-Exempt Pool, is up at inequality.org. When you count it all up, our giant tax-exempt pool is well into the tens of trillions, and growing. I of course would love it if you read the entire piece, but for those who want to skip the details, here's the conclusion:

And how large a share of this $60 trillion in financial wealth sits in America’s giant tax-exempt pool? About $34 trillion. Over half the nation’s financial wealth is generating income not subject to current taxation.

How much is our giant tax-exempt pool costing us? Hundreds of billions. So the next time you hear from the “Fix the Debt” crowd about how we can’t afford new roads or rail or cops or teachers — or that we need to cut the benefits of Social Security recipients — remember our giant tax-exempt pool.

This is of course part of our great experiment: How much wealth and how much income can we cram into the top one percent before the bottom 90% explodes? We're still trying our darnedest find out.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, last week unveiled excerpts from
interviews showing that a Cincinnati IRS manager flagged the first tea
party group for extra scrutiny and that an Ohio agent created the
initial search criteria for filtering other cases.

In a letter to committee chairman Darrell Issa
(R-Calif.) on Thursday, Cummings challenged Issa’s unilateral
disclosures and asked him to account for every line of the interviews
that he wants “withheld from the American people.” He requested a
response by Monday. Otherwise, he would release the transcripts himself.

Darrell "Grand Theft Auto" Issa failed to respond. Big mistake. Elijah Cummings has always been a man of his word.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have just released a full
transcript of testimony from a key witness in the investigation of IRS
targeting of conservatives — and it appears to confirm that the
initial targeting did originate with a low-level employee in the
Cincinnati office.

It also shows a key witness and IRS screening manager – a self
described conservative Republican — denying any communication with the
White House or senior IRS officials about the targeting.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law today an expansion of Arizona’s
Medicaid program under the federal health-care overhaul, brought about
through a fierce five-month legislative battle.

Brewer, standing before a riser in a Capitol conference room that
held dozens of lawmakers, hospital officials and other supporters,
thanked the bipartisan coalition of legislators who voted for the bill.

“They displayed something we don’t see a lot in politics today, and
that is courage,” the governor said. “You put people before politics and
you stood firm in the face of personal attacks.”

* * *

“An opportunity like this doesn’t come very often,” the governor said at
today’s signing ceremony. “And I hope less in the future.”

After Brewer signed the legislation into law, she sent out this tweet along with the following picture.

Paul Krugman's column in yesterday's Times, Sympathy for the Luddites, pokes at an uncomfortable truth. Those on both the right and left want to believe that education is the answer to both unemployment and inequality.

It likely isn't.

As Krugman points out, mechanization is eliminating jobs of the "highly-skilled" just as it has eliminated jobs of the unskilled. We can tell those who have lost their jobs to mechanization or globalization, some in their 50's or older, to train for a new job, but what if that job is mechanized out of existence as well?

Ultimately, we need to deal with the reality that income is moving from labor to capital, as Karl Marx predicted it would. Krugman confronts this head on:

We all know Rand (short for Randal) Paul, the Libertarian Senator from Kentucky.

But did you know about another Rand (in this case, short for Randolph) Paul, who had a susbstantial impact on tax policy beginning in the depression years until his death in the mid '50's? I don't know if he actually went by Rand, but it makes for a good introduction.

I learned about Randolph Paul and his contribution to tax policy in Sam Pizzigati's The Rich Don't Always Win, which I've previously written about on this blog. Paul was a successful tax lawyer who represented many of America's largest corporations. But he was a progressive at heart, and believed strongly in a progressive tax system, with steep rates of income tax for those at the very top. He left his lucrative law practice, first on a part-time basis and ultimately on a full-time basis to assist the Roosevelt administration with the design and implementation of that progressive tax system.

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